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"I much prefer the current state of affairs to the way things were a decade ago" It's what the developers say. Every developer has latest macbook, works on a s

"I much prefer the current state of affairs to the way things were a decade ago" It's what the developers say. Every developer has latest macbook, works on a shiny new office with AC with all the bandwidth and gadgets. And they think people all around the world also has the same thing. Whereas lots of users don't care about the AJAX loading. Users want websites to be fast and less annoying. But, developers only care about latest hot frameworks even though that will make things slow for users. Newest Youtube redesign is the same. It consumes more cpu and way much slower than the previous one. I know because I don't have a high end laptop and 100mbps internet. It does not matter because Google employees use all the latest gadgets.

Qub3d 9y ago
I found a presentation a while back that covers "website obesity"[0]. It puts some quantifiers on the problem you're describing. [0]: http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm
vim_wannabe 9y ago
I think the Youtube redesign idea is to use something like polymers or whatever they are called. They are a Google technology supported in Chrome, but since other browsers need to use some clunky and superslow javascript polyfill Chrome suddenly feels like the fast browser.
- dabockster 9y ago
  Wow, this is evil.
  - applecrazy 9y ago
    Not really. Other browser vendors can implement the standard too, which is called Web Components. fyi: It's generally considered bad practice to assume bad intentions when alternative explanations suffice.
    - jklein11 9y ago
      I don't think that assumption was unfair. The way that the previous comment was framed, Google implemented this so that other browsers seemed slow. Those intentions seem pretty evil. With the framing of pushing browsers to implementing the Web Components standard it seems much less evil. I think the true motivations are likely somewhere in the middle.
    - vim_wannabe 9y ago
      It's still a draft i think.
- ehllo 9y ago
  you're right, they used Polymer and Material Design for the frontend in combination with the spfjs framework, which was introduced in 2014. https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/05/a-sneak-peek-at-youtubes-new-look-and.html https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/05/a-sneak-peek-at-youtu... https://github.com/youtube/spfjs https://github.com/youtube/spfjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNe_HdayTtY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNe_HdayTtY
technofire 9y ago
> Users want websites to be fast and less annoying. Well, pulling some JSON via AJAX and updating a small part of the page is faster than reloading the entire thing.
- pwinnski 9y ago
  You would think so. I mean, that's obvious, right? And yet websites are slow. That's not just "get off my lawn" crankiness, either. We're now downloading multiple megabytes, and things are rendered via javascript late in the process, so we start seeing content later than we used to, and we get the final render later than we used to. Modern websites are largely slow and annoying, a topic that has come up many, many times--with benchmarks--on HN.
  - cholantesh 9y ago
    Doesn't that have to do with overengineering more than anything? Most of the Javascript on a modern website is pretty much superfluous I'd say.
    - threatofrain 9y ago
      I'd also say that the JS and its burden on CPU, RAM, and battery, is also pretty trivial compared to rich media consuming more than a few MB's off a user's mobile data plan. Many people consider 1 MB to be around the upper guideline for bundle sizes; 2 MB of JS is considered quite big. But HTML CSS JS cannot compete against rich media, and how badly it drains the user's most finite resource of all -- mobile data. That's what makes an information lookup even on native Yelp costly to the user.
  - threatofrain 9y ago
    Is JS the problem though? For really heavy apps, sure, but many people consider 1 MB to be a good upper threshold for bundle sizes. I think the biggest culprit over the web, the thing that makes me hesitant as a mobile user to visit websites willy nilly, is media content, such as images, sound, and video. Many websites look empty without media, so people splatter at least a few things on there, as do advertisements, and I think that's easily a few MB. I also think the biggest resource that people are consuming nowadays, including well-to-do people with iPhones, is not CPU, RAM, or even battery resource, but mobile data limits.
shawncplus 9y ago
Google developers definitely know there's a problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bZvq3nodf4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bZvq3nodf4

Qub3d 9y ago

I found a presentation a while back that covers "website obesity"[0]. It puts some quantifiers on the problem you're describing. [0]: http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm

vim_wannabe 9y ago

I think the Youtube redesign idea is to use something like polymers or whatever they are called. They are a Google technology supported in Chrome, but since other browsers need to use some clunky and superslow javascript polyfill Chrome suddenly feels like the fast browser.

dabockster 9y ago
Wow, this is evil.
- applecrazy 9y ago
  Not really. Other browser vendors can implement the standard too, which is called Web Components. fyi: It's generally considered bad practice to assume bad intentions when alternative explanations suffice.
  - jklein11 9y ago
    I don't think that assumption was unfair. The way that the previous comment was framed, Google implemented this so that other browsers seemed slow. Those intentions seem pretty evil. With the framing of pushing browsers to implementing the Web Components standard it seems much less evil. I think the true motivations are likely somewhere in the middle.
  - vim_wannabe 9y ago
    It's still a draft i think.
ehllo 9y ago
you're right, they used Polymer and Material Design for the frontend in combination with the spfjs framework, which was introduced in 2014. https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/05/a-sneak-peek-at-youtubes-new-look-and.html https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/05/a-sneak-peek-at-youtu... https://github.com/youtube/spfjs https://github.com/youtube/spfjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNe_HdayTtY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNe_HdayTtY

technofire 9y ago

> Users want websites to be fast and less annoying. Well, pulling some JSON via AJAX and updating a small part of the page is faster than reloading the entire thing.

pwinnski 9y ago
You would think so. I mean, that's obvious, right? And yet websites are slow. That's not just "get off my lawn" crankiness, either. We're now downloading multiple megabytes, and things are rendered via javascript late in the process, so we start seeing content later than we used to, and we get the final render later than we used to. Modern websites are largely slow and annoying, a topic that has come up many, many times--with benchmarks--on HN.
- cholantesh 9y ago
  Doesn't that have to do with overengineering more than anything? Most of the Javascript on a modern website is pretty much superfluous I'd say.
  - threatofrain 9y ago
    I'd also say that the JS and its burden on CPU, RAM, and battery, is also pretty trivial compared to rich media consuming more than a few MB's off a user's mobile data plan. Many people consider 1 MB to be around the upper guideline for bundle sizes; 2 MB of JS is considered quite big. But HTML CSS JS cannot compete against rich media, and how badly it drains the user's most finite resource of all -- mobile data. That's what makes an information lookup even on native Yelp costly to the user.
- threatofrain 9y ago
  Is JS the problem though? For really heavy apps, sure, but many people consider 1 MB to be a good upper threshold for bundle sizes. I think the biggest culprit over the web, the thing that makes me hesitant as a mobile user to visit websites willy nilly, is media content, such as images, sound, and video. Many websites look empty without media, so people splatter at least a few things on there, as do advertisements, and I think that's easily a few MB. I also think the biggest resource that people are consuming nowadays, including well-to-do people with iPhones, is not CPU, RAM, or even battery resource, but mobile data limits.

shawncplus 9y ago

Google developers definitely know there's a problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bZvq3nodf4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bZvq3nodf4